Living Situations
by Amore de la luna
Summary: 100 years from where Disney left off, two sisters now inherit the castle. Then one morning a sorceror appears at their doorstep, to curse or bless the castle and all that remain inside. But what will happen when one sister is good and the other evil?
1. Chapter 1

It's so difficult being nineteen. You're too young for anyone to take you seriously, or to make decisions for yourself, but you're old enough to take responsibility for your actions, and to take on a good amount of work around the household, to top it off. Or, at least, this was Amelia Derins' point of view.

In actuality, her point of view consisted of the eastern gardens below her bedrooms' (or one of her bedrooms') arching windows. She could just pick out the lightest of the flowers in the fading sunset, until they dissolved into the shady blues of the twilight. She sighed as her favorite white roses faded from sight. She loved the color white. It seemed so pure, so immaculate and untainted by the scars of time; those wounds that could, when provoked, delve into the most innocent of hearts, and with such infuriating ease. Ami had learned this lesson the hardest way anyone with so much love in them could; by seeing it corrupt someone else.

That someone else was her sister, or rather, half sister, Jezebel Pouncell-Derin. Amelia's mother died soon after her birth. Her father, Jacob Derin, remarried to the woman he loved when he was fifteen, Ezra Pouncell, who already had a daughter of four. Amelia never contradicted him in his choice of partnership, but she realized it to be incredibly distasteful when she was old enough to understand the situation. She was right.

Her father died when Ami was three, leaving her unofficially an orphan, and officially miserable. She and Jezebel (whom she playfully referred to as Jesse) grew up under Madame Pouncell's reign of chaos. Ami watched as the saddened and disgustingly naive woman neglected her daughter entirely, and forgot that Ami ever existed. Ami did not mind, she liked being alone, as there was no one worth being around except the friendly servants and the animals on the premises. Jesse, however, was unusually spoiled and kept feeding into her mother for attention, day after day prying her for "pretty things" as she called them (she was only seven at the time). Ezra finally went hysterical, screaming at Jesse and calling her an "ugly runt" and all sorts of undesirable names. Jesse quickly got over her shock and screeched right back, calling her a "horrible mother" and a "prissy whore", and other such names. Ami could only imagine where Jezebel learned them from. Ami sat at the top of the entry staircase, clutching her pale doll, Noelle, and listening for what she knew was coming soon. SMACK! Ami shut her eyes at the sound of Ezra's book hit Jesse square on the jaw, wincing at the sound of her half-sisters' stammered sobs.

"M-mommy! Mommy!" the small girl wept in terror. It was then that an unfazed Ezra told her, in an icily cool tone, "I am _not _your 'mommy'." As Jesse's big blue eyes widened she tripped over her words, "B-but, but, no. No." She shook her head, her black hair falling out of its neat little braid, short bangs swaying, and whispered a barely heard "No." The soft reply came in one harsh, cold word. "Yes."

Ami strained her ears so hard that they hurt. She had crawled down to the bottom steps in an effort to eavesdrop. When she heard Ezra's answer she clasped a small, pale hand over her mouth to smother a small cry, trapping the noise that would give her away and break the crucial moment. What if Ezra was just using a figure of speech, what if she didn't mean it? She knew in that moment that if the breath she needed to give was brought into the world, that could seal Jesse's fate, it could stab any chance of reconciliation between her and her supposed un-mother. So, uncomfortable as it was, she did not draw air, waiting silently for someone to speak.

"Your _mother_," Ezra continued, annunciating the word 'mother' as if this were an etiquette lesson rather than a crisis, "…is dead, and has been since two months after your birth, exactly." She paused and watched the tears silently roll down Jesse's pretty pink cheeks. Ezra gave her a bored look and continued, unemotionally, "I could arrange for a servant to show you her tombstone, if you'd like."

At this Jesse whimpered loudly and the tears flowed readily, as if they had been waiting for realization to come around. She buried her face in her hands and turned around, running blindly for the stairs. She made it up the first three and tripped, falling hard on her stomach. Still crying, she looked up, coming face to face with the small, delicate features of Ami, who also had small tears running down her face. Neither spoke for half a second, then Ami tried to mouth, "I'm sorry", but she never got the chance. Jesse's eyes narrowed and she jumped to her feet, hands balled into fists at her sides. She ran up the rest of the stairs, turned a corner and was gone, off to cower in a lonely corner of the castle where she could mourn in peace.

She was never the same after that day, in fact she seemed to get worse. The next day she acted as if nothing had ever happened, putting a sickly sweet smile on her face as she skipped down the stairs to breakfast.

Ami knew something was terribly wrong, but said nothing. She always chose to say nothing, because whenever she tried to speak either Jesse or Ezra would cut her off or tell her rudely to "go play". When she didn't move, a glare would follow, and the petite brunette never wanted to see what would come after that.

And then one day, not many months later, Ezra disappeared. No one seemed to know where she could have gotten off too without anyone noticing, but Ami saw that Jesse carried a rather smug expression on her face that she revealed only amongst her many stuffed teddy bears. Ami had followed her around that day, trying to work out what had happened. She slid Jesse's bedroom door open just slightly, and put her ear up to the crack. She heard Jesse talking to her bears in a soft voice, whispering "She's gone, now. All gone. And she will _never _be coming back."

Ami sucked in a sharp breath. Her innocent mind had not led to the conclusions that it now inhabited. She shut the door and looked at the ground, lost in contemplation. _No, she would never do something like that. That's just…awful. She couldn't have-_

She stopped in mid thought; she thought she heard something. She opened the door a bit again. Was that-? Was Jesse humming something? She pressed her ear up hard against the crack, concentrating.

"_Ding-dong, the wicked witch is dead…"_

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This is my first fanfic, and I know it sucks, so please don't flame me! Read and review! (oh I don't own Beauty and the beast, or what will become something like it...)


	2. Chapter 2

Amelia now lay lounging on her window-side sofa, her feet tucked beneath her pale, slender legs and a book in her soft hands. She wasn't paying much attention to the leather bound novel, but instead continued to look out her window, shifting her gaze up to the creamy, off white moon, settling in the midst of the stars. 

As a girl Ami's father told her stories about how a beautiful enchantress lived up on top of the highest moon-mountain, watching over the castle and "one little lady in particular." Ami would always smile at him as he tapped the tip of her small nose and whispered "Madame Amelia, I dub thee Luna Pequena, little moon." He would finally coax her to bed by reminding her that even the moon goddess fell asleep amongst her bed of clouds and blanket of stars.

Ami grinned now, as she remembered how she never really _did _go straight to sleep. She always jumped once more out of bed after he had left, just to fix her eyes on her pearl in the sky, her nighttime lantern.

Her father's nickname caught on in the household, at least by the servants and maids, and everyone who she really thought of as friends. Only after her father's death did they stop calling her Little Luna, or Little Moon and the like, as they feared it would sadden the small girl. In truth, it comforted her to have something of her father to hold onto.

The only one who continued to call her Little Luna was their old cook, Mrs. Doily, who had been with the Derin's since Ami's father was a young boy. She was a short, pleasantly plump lady with pink cheeks and lively olive green eyes to match a light Scottish accent. Her thin white hair was usually pulled up into a tight bun and she always seemed to be wearing the same light blue apron with little black Scot Terriers around the edges.

Whenever she needed someone to talk to, or something to do (which was increasingly uncommon with her step-sister in charge) Mrs. Doily was there for her. They were quite a pair, those two; funny to look upon, really. The young and pale, slim, coffee-eyed brunette scurrying around to obey the orders of a surprisingly stern chubby old lady with those wild eyes who looks like Mrs. Clause's hyper-active twin sister!

As of late she had been seeing less and less of her favorite cook, though. Ami was pretty sure it was something of Jesse's doing, who always thought conversing with servants to be most distasteful. Ami reminded her that there was really no one else to talk to, which led to no avail. Jesse merely responded that it was indeed then time to begin courting for a suitor to keep her company.

Since then, Ami groaned inwardly whenever she heard the word "court" or anything that remotely resembled it. About a year and eight failed suitors had gone by since that day, each one seemingly more dull and/or arrogant, and every one of them filled up to the brim with distasteful qualities and characteristics. Apparently there just weren't any good men nowadays, Ami recalled thinking, that somehow she had missed the ones worth her time and energy.

She had then hoped against hope that she was wrong, but now she really didn't care anymore. She knew that it was just one of her sister's plots to shoo her out of the castle, and that, for now, it didn't matter as long as she continued to refuse each suitor.

What scared Ami the most was the truth that, for every man she denied, her sister grew more impatient, and that as Jesse's patience thinned, she was devising new plans to take control, to make it _her_ game and play by _her _rules. Ami was certain that behind the ceaselessly smiling face were plots of vengeance, if not action, against her. Plots that would be increasingly forceful with each day until Jesse decided that the time for stalling and peaceful negotiation was long gone, and that Ami would leave by _any _means necessary.

Now, for Ami, was simply a time to wait and keep her wits about her; a time to expect the unexpected, a trait she had become accustomed to in her home of nineteen years. Although fear kept her usually bright features dull and tired, she felt as if something good was going to happen soon; something _quite _unexpected. This filled her heart with the hope she so often longed for, and gave her faith that there will be another day. Be it a day of sorrow and depression, of hard reality or of fantasy, there will be another day. This was a lesson in life she so often depended on; now more than ever.

Her head shot around from the now deepened sky as she heard the familiar _tap-tap-tap _of Jesse's beloved heels. She never wore any other kind of shoe, it seemed. It was as if she even slept in the things. Ami listened carefully and could just hear the particular _swish_ of her favorite long black silk dress against the marble hallway.

_Oh no._ Amelia thought.

Whenever Jesse wore black (which was currently most of the time) she was contemplating. Not just about anything, mind you. She was contemplating her next move, the next step in getting rid of her step-sister. She was as meticulous in her clothing choices as she was in this little game of 'chess' she had going on with Ami, and Ami had come to recognize her thought process by what she wore. And when Jesse wore black silk, she had just made up her mind on where to move her pawns. Or, in this case, her knights…

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Disclaimer: Own nothing of what will become something like Beauty and the Beast, I own all of my characters, yadayadayada...Please read and review! 


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